What's New & Members' Blog

All over the world members are creating wonderful projects, artwork, books, poetry and music, and this blog is a space for telling others about your work, or posting about any subject relevant to Druidry or the spiritual quest.

If you are an OBOD member and would like to post here, just email blogs@druidry.org include photos, purchasing information if applicable, your web site, contact information, and any other relevant data, and we’ll post it as soon as we can.

In addition, in this section we announce the latest additions and changes to the website to help you keep up to date.

Alternative Funerals

More and more people, particularly in the alternative field, know that they don’t have to stick to a conventional religious or secular/humanist funeral service. They know that they can ask a celebrant to tailor-make a service that suits their needs and interests, and on the OBOD website we list members who offer to do this: (See here).

But in the wider world, many people are unaware of the fact that such an option exists. We have just been approached by a company making a documentary on this subject, and having talked to them I believe they will produce an informative and helpful programme. Do get in touch with them if you are in the UK and think you can help. They are keen to hear from people planning, holding or facilitating such a funeral. Here is the message they asked me to pass on:

My Perfect Funeral (working title)

Planning a personalised funeral? Breaking with convention?We’re making a really positive television documentary for Channel 5. We would like to show the diverse range of possibilities for people to take control of their funeral and create ceremonies and memorials that are more personal and reflective of the individual concerned. The documentary aims to explore all the diverse ways this can be done which the wider public may not know about.

As producers, it has been a real eye opener to learn that the conventional funeral is a Victorian invention and that legally we are much freer to do things differently than we ever realised. We’d love to get this across and to illustrate it we’d like to meet people who are planning a personalised funeral or memorial. We are not prescriptive and open to all new suggestions. We will be filming from mid September to the end of October.

The tone of the programme will celebrate the diverse range of commemorations that are possible and highlight a more contemporary approach to marking death in a really positive way. We hope the film itself may serve as a good memory and we can make it available to families. In certain circumstances we may be able to contribute towards expenses.

Back2Back Productions is a Brighton-based documentary production company specialising in high quality factual programming and you can see our work on the website www.back2back.tv .

If this sounds interesting please get in touch and feel free to ask us anything at all about the project. anne.mason@back2back.tv or 01273 227700